Best time in history to be a cyclist

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RhythMick

Über Member
Location
Barnsley
Another interesting consideration or question would be. With wiggo looking like he might win the Tour and the Olympics coming up the profile of British cycling may rise greatly. Specially if Vicky P, Cav and others win gold. This I suspect may change the perception of cycling for many people and make it cool... As such we could be heading for a golden era for cycling, what do you think?

+1
 

vernon

Harder than Ronnie Pickering
Location
Meanwood, Leeds
The older I, get the better I was.
 
I reckon that the golden age of cycling was when it first caught on with the masses, when working class people escaped the confines of their grimy towns to cycle out to the countryside in vast numbers at weekends, when ownership of a bike did not mark you as either a crank, or a pauper, when the best bikes were made in Britain (and indeed when the best of anything was made in Britain) and when the roads were not packed with idiots in cars.
 

hoopdriver

Guru
Location
East Sussex
Aaah.... So you missed the mid-80s then? Never mind. It can't be helped.

That was a true Golden Age.

It's not that bad now; don't get me wrong. It's nice that you kids have some posh equipment to play with....

But the mid-80s.... Nothing of its like will ever happen again. Perfect. Just perfect!
Of course, that's because you missed out on the Sixties. I remember when I was a lad...
 

al78

Guru
Location
Horsham
Another interesting consideration or question would be. With wiggo looking like he might win the Tour and the Olympics coming up the profile of British cycling may rise greatly. Specially if Vicky P, Cav and others win gold. This I suspect may change the perception of cycling for many people and make it cool... As such we could be heading for a golden era for cycling, what do you think?

It depends how much publicity it is given on the national news.
 
My dear old mum (89) would say the golden age was the 1940s when she was commuting 20 odd miles a day to work in a Birmingham munitions factory. Fewer vehicles on the road back then, you just had to cycle through the blackout and occasional air raid, yes far safer back then.:eek:
 

deptfordmarmoset

Full time tea drinker
Location
Armonmy Way
Eras as far as UK cycling went:

In my childhood, nobody knew their Campag from their Camembert. Everything was Huret and Simplex.

When I was 20, most people had got into cars and motorcycles. Bicycles were for students and political activists or 'proper racing types'. I just pootled on a 10-speed 'racer'. I'd graduated from 5 to 10 when I was about 19.... 10 gears! Wow!

I was about 25 when rigid MTBs first appeared. My peers had money for the first time and MTBs became a sort of urban accessory. Many, many non-cyclists started turning up on them. This is the first time I remember people having an opinion about tyres, brakes or frame manufacturers. Marin and Kona (as I recall) were cool brands. My road bike (they were now known as that) was old hat and a bit geeky. MTBs made cycling cool for the first time I could recall. Few people I knew used them off-road. Nobody new to cycling wanted a 'road bike'. I do think the MTB saved cycling in the UK, but its popularity had everything to do with fashion and little (in many cases) to do with off-road riding.

I recall the TdF at that time being something you could only watch in eclectic, foreign cafes in Soho or near Seven Dials. Nobody knew or cared about it or any other road races. Road bikes were as far below the radar as ever they had been.

I hate to say this, but among my non-cycling peers the difference for road riding was Lance. His brand made road cycling cool as MTBs had made cycling cool. People started wanting a road bike and their main frame of reference was Lance. They knew a hundred and seventeen facts about him and didn't know the name of one other rider, or when the TdF took place, or where it finished... anything really. It was Lance. He was cool. He was tough. He nearly died and he beat the Frogs at 'their own game'. Trek was cool. Lance was cool. "I want a road bike. How many Watts are you putting out? I need to work on my cadence. What's the range of your groupset? How do I inflate a tyre?"

This is truly the Golden Age. People I've never met ask me whether I prefer Shimano or Campagnolo. I quite liked it when nobody gave a flying f**k at the Moon which I preferred. :rolleyes:

Me? Bitter?

Slightly different experience for me. A bunch of us at school, circa 1969-72, all rode road bikes and it seemed like a very cool way of getting around to us. There wasn't really much snobbiness - more that ''I want'' kind of schoolboy aspiration - but we did talk of campagnolo in envious tones and some of us even managed to get hold of bits of kit. Centre pull brakes were definitely an object of desire. (I had some Weinmann brakes which I thought were excellent.)

None of us did any competitive riding beyond those impromptu little challenges - ''race you back to your place!'' and clubs and the pro cycling scene were so remote from us that we weren't at all interested. Besides, it had the air of being far too serious and regimented; doing something like that was definitely seen as uncool. Also, while bike shops would often run clubs, the whole thing felt a bit out of date. Looking back, the impression was that organised competitive cycling had had its day.

Then came a point when the roads changed. Car engines started to sound tinny instead of chuggy and the customary wide berth we used to get disappeared. In other words, cars started going straight on and bikes got out of the way. I found that road cycling had become very unpleasant and dangerous and actually found my commuting/utility cycling started to avoid the big roads. Bikes became a fairly rare sight on major roads and those that still rode them were of the serious (and humiliatingly fit) kind.

Then came MTBs which gave much needed new life to the cycling industry and retained some continuity. This might sound a little off the wall but one of the least mentioned contributors to the rebirth of cycling in towns was the bus lane. (Well, it was never going to be cycle lanes, was it?) My impression is that establishing bus lanes gave cyclists a corridor along the most direct routes, and given back some space, the cyclists reappeared.

Now, the success of British track cyclists' Olympic racing and the current blossoming of British road racing (4 different British stage winners, last year's green jersey, Sky currently defending the yellow jersey) is unprecedented. The growth in cycling numbers, be it for commuting, fitness, competition, leisure, has happened more or less at the same time. My guess is that there's a simultaneous top-down (sporting successes, health propaganda) and bottom-up (bus lanes, expensive, slow and unpleasant public transport) effect. I have no doubt that I've not seen such a golden age here before.

Who would have guessed that this golden age would have happened when that golden thing in the sky had disappeared?
 

Smokin Joe

Legendary Member
I personally think your Uncle is looking at that time with road coloured shades on as riding 100/150 miles TO a race, then race, then ride home, is a great amount of distance which without including the race distance means they were doing 200/300 miles if you count both ways. To do 300 miles at constant 20mph takes 15 hours even today. If you count time for waiting for the race to start, the time in the race and the energy this consumes, getting your results etc, stopping for food, drink, toilet stop etc on the way to or from the event and they could be riding for a massive amount of time.
Riding 100 plus miles to an event on the Saturday, racing then riding home afterwards on Sunday and arriving back late at night was indeed a common thing right up to the end of the fifties. I have a book detailing the first fifty years of my last club, from 1907 to 1957 and many instances of members doing just that are recorded. Remember, few people had cars back then and cyclists rode much greater distances than we do today because the bicycle was regarded a serious mode of transport rather than a leisure/short commute machine. In fact numerous 200 mile time trials were held throughout the season in addition to quite a few 24 hour events and 25s were regarded as a short sprint. Only a handful of long distance TTs are held today.

I do remember that the road races I rode in the seventies were often around the 80/90 mile mark and they were only fish & chippers, few outside of premier events seem longer than 50 miles today.
 

Mr Haematocrit

msg me on kik for android
Riding 100 plus miles to an event on the Saturday, racing then riding home afterwards on Sunday and arriving back late at night was indeed a common thing right up to the end of the fifties.

Now I have no issues with believing what you state, the OP made no reference to his Uncle cycling home the following day, it was implied that he road 100/150 miles to a race, competed and then rode home which I think is unlikely due to the time constaints I mentioned. Thats how I read it at least.
 
OP
OP
NotthatJasonKenny

NotthatJasonKenny

Faster on HFLC
Location
Bolton
Now I have no issues with believing what you state, the OP made no reference to his Uncle cycling home the following day, it was implied that he road 100/150 miles to a race, competed and then rode home which I think is unlikely due to the time constaints I mentioned. Thats how I read it at least.

He is adamant that it was the same day, they couldn't afford to stay overnight! I reckon it's doable (just not by me)!
 

bigjim

Legendary Member
Location
Manchester. UK
I would imagine cycling journeys were a lot faster in those days. I remember club outings in the 60s when we were almost always on A roads. There were very few traffic lights, roundabouts or lines of parked cars etc. You were fit and used to the big gears because thats what you rode all week long. Plenty of Transport cafes on the main drags as well for a good cheap meal. How many main roads can you ride down now without having to slow down or stop? Want a tea stop? Off you go down country lanes to some twee village for an overpriced snack. So, yes, it was possible to knock out big mileages in non stop straight lines on A roads with no sharp steep hills to slow you or spoil your rytham.
 
I know from his diary my father and chums did Barrow-in-Furness to London in a day, that is they left home in daylight and got to London in time to book into the Union Jack Club for the night. Next morning they set off early via Silver City Airways air ferry from Lympne to Le Touquet and were in Paris for tea.
 
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